One day, I’ll understand how Cliff Lee has managed to start the season 6-0 with an ERA of 0.81. I’ll one day understand how opposing hitters have managed just 25 hits off Lee in 44.1 innings. I know the walks are key; he has issued only two this year. But his stuff just doesn’t scream out untouchable success.

Tonight, I watched from the third deck as Cliff Lee put on something of a strike-throwing clinic. He threw 103 pitches, 76 of them for strikes, and the Yanks found themselves in few three-ball counts tonight. What he did, though, was to keep the Yankeess off balance by changing speeds. None of his stuff is overpowering; his pitches range from about 79 to 92 miles per hour. But he pounded the zone and kept the Yankees hitters guessing.

Or at least, I think that’s what he did. Part of me thinks that the Yanks probably should have crushed Cliff Lee. But the unstoppable force that is Cliff Lee just keeps rolling along. On a night like tonight, you just have to tip your cap to Lee and hope that the Yanks end their 14-inning scoreless drought early in this afternoon’s game.

Now, instead of dwelling further on this loss, let me regale you with a tale from the stadium tonight. Every night, after the second inning or so, a lucky fan gets to answer a fairly easy Yankee trivia question on the DiamondVision screen. It’s long been my family’s theory that the people with the giant cards and the announcer do everything in their power to make sure the contestant gets the answer right. For example, on Ron Guidry Day, Ron Guidry was probably the answer to the trivia question. Other times, the announcer will go, “Is it A, Beeeeeeeeeeeee, C or D?” drawing out the B to the point of absurdity.

Tonight’s trivia question: Who threw the last Yankee perfect game? Was it: A. David Wells; B. David Cone; C. Don Larsen; or D. Jim Abbott? The scoreboard announcer then noted that, as a hint, the answer was in the stadium, and then they flashed on David Cone sitting in the YES broadcast booth.

The contestant picked the card for A. Not only would any fan know that David Cone’s perfect game in 1999 was more recent than Wells’ 1998 effort, but anyone with half a brain could have made the visual connection between David Cone in the broadcast booth and the picture of David Cone on the scoreboard.

When the contestant go it wrong — and it takes some skill to actually get the answer wrong — the scoreboard announcer seemed a little shocked. He amusingly urged the guy to get glasses and thanked him for playing. As the crowd booed the clueless for getting the answer wrong, I laughed at the absurdity of it all. It was one funny moment during an otherwise dreary performance by the Yankee offense.

The Indians really seem to have Joba’s number. Two of his three career blown saves have come against Cleveland, and he’s surrendered more runs to the Indians than to any other team. While Joba now leads the Yanks in blown saves, we can’t exactly blame the midges for this one.

Instead tonight, we can look at the game one of two ways. The first way is the “c’est la vie” approach to baseball. Joba’s giving up a game-changing home run was bound to happen sooner or later, and as Peter Abraham wrote, the kid’s been fantastic so far. That bad night just so happened to be tonight. That home run doesn’t diminish his accomplishments so far, and he’s still one hell of a pitcher.

Through that lens, the game of baseball takes center stage. Joba threw a fastball, and Dave Delucci beat him on his best pitch. You tip your cap to that. Through the other lens however, we can sit here behind our computer screens and keyboards and second-guess the hell out of this one.

In this light, Joba is certainly the one to shoulder the blame for the loss. But Joe Girardi could draw some negative credit too. One could criticize Girardi for keeping Joba on the bench since May 2. Prior to tonight, he had thrown just one inning since April 28, and Joba is used to getting the regular work of a starter. Maybe he was shaky because he hadn’t thrown much later, but who really knows?

So when a one-run lead rolled around, Joba was less than sharp. Prior to the big three-run blow, he had given up a hit and a walk, and he had uncharacteristically thrown more balls than strikes. As he put it, “I was just kind of out of whack out there. You’re not always going to be perfect.”

So with two on and two out in the bottom of the 8th of a one-run game and the middle of the lineup, albeit in the form of a pinch hitter, at bat, the time was ripe for the Yankee manager to turn the game over to the best closer of all time. Joba didn’t have it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If ever there was a tense save situation, it was then.

To further this second-guess to end all second guesses is the fact that Joba, for all the hype and attention, has thrown just 125 professional innings and 88 of those were at the Minor League level. He is, in other words, a rookie. Yes, he is a rookie filled with poise and facing the prospects of a very bright career, but he is a rookie nonetheless. Had Kyle Farnsworth been on the mound in the same situation, Rivera would have entered the game in the eighth.

But Joba is Joba, and he carries around a reputation of invincibility. He had yet to give up a run at Yankee Stadium, and there was no reason to think that Dave Delucci would be the one to get to him. He had thrived in these situations before, and logic would dictate keeping him in.

But fate has a funny way of intervening. Things unfolded as they did; Dave Delucci hit that home run; and the Yanks went home losers with Joba bearing the weight of a costly blown save and a loss. Chalk that one up to fate or chalk it up to a huge second guess. Either way, that was a tough one to lose, and it’s really easy to argue that Joe Girardi was faced with a possible/impossible situation. Either choice could be the right one, and either choice could be the wrong one. It’s just not fair to second-guess this one much.

Meanwhile, the Yanks are right back at .500 with Cliff Lee and his 0.94 ERA on tap later today. But as we all know, it’s still early.